All posts tagged legal writing

A Georgetown University law professor’s poetic complaint about the treatment of research-and-writing faculty members has touched a nerve among her tenured and non-tenured peers.

Law Blog reported earlier about a protest poem penned by Kristen K. Tiscione, who thinks it’s unfair that faculty members who teach legal research and practical legal-writing skills to law students have less job security and get paid less than than tenured “podium” faculty.

Some people failed to see the outrage, likening the status of research-and-writing faculty members in the legal education to nurses in the medical profession. Read More »

Abraham Lincoln told a story about a lawyer who tried to establish that a calf had five legs by calling its tail a leg. But the calf had only four legs, Lincoln observed, because calling a tail a leg does not make it so. Before us is a case about a lawyer who tried to establish that a company owned a copyright by drafting a contract calling the company the copyright owner, even though the company lacked the rights associated with copyright ownership. Heeding Lincoln’s wisdom, and the requirements of the Copyright Act, we conclude that merely calling someone a copyright owner does not make it so.

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The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

Must Reads

First Amendment advocates and major media companies are urging a federal appeals court to throw out a defamation judgment against "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle that entitled former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura to more than $1 million of the royalties from the book.

A federal jury in Los Angeles on Tuesday ordered singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay about $7.4 million to the family of Marvin Gaye, after finding the duo’s 2013 hit song “Blurred Lines” copied parts of Mr. Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up.”